Atari 2600 has a Raspberry Pi hiding under the hood

Seriously, the drawer pull on this Atari 2600 is not stock. Don’t they know this voids the warranty? The thing is, you won’t actually find any of the original internals anyway. When building this portable emulator housed in a 2600 case [Linear Nova] was careful to ensure that everything could be restored to its original condition (except for two hinges mounted on the back) sometime down the road. That’s a good goal to set for yourself. We think the build is the fun part of most projects and often wonder what to do with them when they’re done and our interest has waned.

A seven-inch LCD screen was attached to the underside of the lid using Velcro. When tilted up it’s at a nice viewing angle for the player. [Linear] prefers to use a Wii remote as the control this portable video game emulator. It connects to the Raspberry Pi over Bluetooth using a USB dongle. The advantage of this is that you just throw the remote inside the case too. For now there are two power cords, one for the RPi and the other for the LCD screen but he plans to add a power hub in the future to narrow this down to one. We wonder it that would also be a good time to add his own rechargeable battery pack option? There should be enough room for an RC style pack.

I concur, I would expect to see this in sunday links. However he did provide a good cost breakdown even if it his fit and finish is weak. The overall amount of content provides a decent amount of background, cost analysis, links to how it was all made to work together. Cutesy.

I have to agree to an extent. The hinges and knob improve the serviceability of the unit if the original hardware is replaced. However mounting the hinges on the outside and using a knob that doesn’t even match the wood finish looks cheap. On top of that those hinges mounted in a vicarious manner that’s probably going to crack the casing at some point in the near future.

Strongly agree. It’s a waste.
If the original electronics didn’t work and someone spent weeks testing what’s borken and reverse-engineering a part in a smart and novel way, then, great, very cool. Worthy of HaD.

But destroying a classic for the sake of sticking the tech-du-jour in the same box? meh.